Month: January 2018

Books (and bookstores) have been around for 500 years, and one thing the industry has improved is data gathering. By store, by genre, by format, by author. The data is there… authors can ignore it in their quest to make a ruckus, but the trends are worth knowing about, especially if you’re a publisher or…

A few years ago, I self-published What To Do When It’s Your Turn. We now have more than 150,000 copies in print. That’s amazing for a book that lists for $32, is in color and is hardly a traditional business book. It’s not sold in stores, and is rarely found on Amazon. How did it…

Most books are self-published. Perhaps half are non-fiction. And the number of self-publishers who miss this secret is astonishing. Here you go: The purpose of a book cover is to remind you of a book you’ve read that you liked. The goal is not to invent a new way to design a book cover. The…

A student asked this question. My answer: …it’s a bit like asking if it pays to be a poet. The answer is, “it depends.” It certainly doesn’t pay to be a poet who only makes money from a few journals who pay a few dollars a poem. But it might pay to be Bob Dylan.…